High Tide Aquatics

Anyone know where to get peppermint shrimp?

alve

alve

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After reading through the aiptasia post I decided to try my luck with some peppermint shrimp. I have had my live rock for 7 yrs plus and never had aiptasia, never added any other live rock but only dried Marco Rock in January when I upgraded to a 156g.
Now I noticed at least 10-15 patches of small aiptasia spread throughout the tank. I guess it must have come in on some frag plugs or something.

Anyone know where I can find peppermint shrimp in the bay area? How many would you add to a 156g? And one last question, will they guaranteed go after the aiptasia?
 
Dolphin Pet Village. That's where I got mine. There is no guaranty that they will eat. For 156G why not get a copperband butterfly? It looks much nicer. Again there is no guaranty that it will eat aiptasia.
 
Phong, I always thought that butterfly fish are not reef safe, read they may nip at SPS polyps , LPS and zoanthids?
 
LO in SF has them pretty often (though I'd still call before going) if you make it out this way.
Peppermints are never ever really promised to take care of any aiptasia problems, though they have worked for me on two different occasions, in two different tanks.
I would go ahead and drop 5-7 in a 156g ... but that is just me. FWIW, I dropped 2 into my 35g a while back, and within a week I was aiptasia free. Sweet!
 
[quote author=alve link=topic=4930.msg60196#msg60196 date=1224652059]
Phong, I always thought that butterfly fish are not reef safe, read they may nip at SPS polyps , LPS and zoanthids?
[/quote]
Oh that I don't know .. My house owner had a huge problem with Aiptasia. He bought one and it took care every single one in a 250G tank. It died after all the aiptasia gone though :( ..
 
Thanks for the info everyone! I will get some peppermint shrimp for now and if that does not work I will try the copperband butterflyfish. I did some online reading just now about this fish and I read on several sites that keeping them alive might be tricky.
 
After calling 5-6 LFS the only place that had them was Aquatic Gallery in Milpitas. They had tons of shrimp and the owner recommended me to use Aiptasia-X from RedSea. He swears it is not harmul at all to a reeftank, he uses it on all of his tanks and it should work great. I bought 6 peppermint shrimp and the Aiptasia-X but will hold off on using it until I see if the shrimp solve the problem.
 
I'd give the chemical method a try (Aiptasia-X) before going toward biological controls, not saying peppermint shrimp won't work, but if given the chance I'm sure they'll chow on some "real food" before aiptasia. I got one I found living in my sump in my 100g tank and in fact I'm keeping track of where aiptasia are in my tank (so when I swap out I can use a dremel and cut the whole hunk of rock off they're living on), well I still got them all, only time I see the peppermint is at night... when I'm spot feeding... and he's there to get his share.
 
Some peppermints will eat aiptasia and some won't. I have one tank with a couple shrimp which is aiptasia free. I noticed an outbreak in another tank and got a few more peppermints for it, but the shrimp didn't eat the aiptasia. I figured they were scared of the cleanershrimp, so I moved the cleaners. Still, they did not eat the aiptasia, but they loved stealing from the corals.

I finally got tired of it and bought a small Klein's butterfly after the recommendation of Reef Hobbyist Magazine. It is a hardy butterfly, and it ate all the aiptasia like candy. It was relentless in its pursuit of aiptasia, but when it couldn't find anymore, it started picking on a few LPS corals. So now it is in a QT tank awaiting a larger set up with only softies and polyps. :(

It is a great little butterfly though, with lots of personality. I am not too upset by its' eating preferences. I plan on using him to "spot graze" Aiptasia when it reoccurs and move him back when it is gone. :D
 
Yeah I'd love to go a copperband route or something similar, but I don't trust them with with only SPS & LPS in that tank, might seem like a big smorgasbord for him.
 
I figured I will get a head start and not wait to see if the peppermint shrimp will eat the Aiptasia so I went ahead last night and used the Aiptasia-X from Red Sea. Wow, that stuff does work good, it is some kind of thick gel when you apply it. The only scary thing is when you turn on the pumps after 15min it gets all blown around by the pumps, like a small snow storm going on and the fish trying to eat it. Hopefully it didn't harm them or any corals when it was getting blown around.
It looks like everywhere I applied it the aiptasia is history. The patches I can not get to will hopefully be taken care off by the peppermint shrimp. Let's wait and see for now :)
I also don't trust the copperband in a reef tank, read a couple negative experiences with coral when I did some research online so I would rather hold off on this and go the peppermint - aiptasia-x route.
 
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